Any Audio Edit Causes Major Timeline Lag and Stuttering

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

PROBLEM:

I just made the upgrade to Premiere 25.1, along with some coworkers of mine, as a solution to a separate issue we 'd been experiencing with 23/24 (which upgrading did resolve). That said, we work with .mp4 video (H264 Codec, never had an issue with using this codec in the past, ever.), .MOV animation files (which don't seem to be a part of my issue), and .WAV audio/music files.

NOW I am experiencing a new, much much more inconvenient issue.

Whenever I touch an audio file in the project (whether that be moving them, cutting them, removing them, shifting them, adjusting volume, ANYTHING), the timeline freezes. This has happened with every file type from Model 12 microphone audio (.WAV) that has been treated in adobe audition This has happened with every music file I've imported. This has happened with every audio file regardless of the source SSD drive. Doing any of these processes with video and image files don't have this effect on the timeline at all, nor does this issue cause any playback lag. It simply slows my process by roughly a second for every single cut I make, thus increasing the edit time on projects.

SYSTEM SPECS:

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor 3.49 GHz

64GB RAM

FOOTAGE FILMED ON:

Sony a6400 (Exports as H.264 Codec [I know])

AUDIO RECORDED ON:
TASCAM Model 12 Mixer

Troubleshooting I've tried so far:

Deleting the media cache (have done both options multiple times, partial and full delete).

Updating ALL drivers, graphics, audio, regular system updates, etc..

Resetting the window layout back to default.

Allocated 52gb of RAM to Premiere when open (out of my 64 total).

Looked at Task Manager and noted nothing out of the ordinary when triggering these lag spikes.

Turned automatic waveform generation off (actually made things significantly worse, had to clear cache and reset again with it back on).

Ensured all footage is 23.96fps, ensured the FPS of the sequences I'm using is the same.

Ensured the audio files AND Premiere are set to 48000hz. Using only .WAV files.

Made sure that I'm editing in Quicktime Apple ProRes422 HQ (and tried LT).

Forcing the color management to Rec.709 (unnecessary but tried it anyways cause I'm desperate).

When in MME, ensured that the input was set to OFF. Taking this train of thought a step further, I ended up switching the audio driver to ASIO and running directly through my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.

Made sure GPU acceleration is ON. My PC should be more than capable to handle this, as it has in the past.

Tested turning off Composite During Edit function in the timeline.

Tested turning off Show FX Badges in the timeline.

Importing and editing as a Production instead of a Project.

Ensured there are NO third-party plug-ins active or even installed for that matter.

I'm really at a loss here. I've been using Adobe products for personal work projects, and run a team of editors on this software but I'm at my wits end with this issue that of the 4 members of my team is only seemingly affecting 2 of our machines (note: 2 editors on my team have the EXACT same machine, EXACT same specs. One of them is having this issue, the other is not). I'm pretty adept with these sorts of things and have tried every solution I could find online or think of myself.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Michael Grenadier]

upgrades often put greater demands on your system, so a few things are setting off alarms for me...  

First, you might try a proxy workflow using a "mezzanine" format for the proxies, like prores proxy.  Happy to go in to more detail about this if you need more details.  Premiere's proxy workflow is rock solid...  post back if you need any help setting it up.  

When you say .mov animation files are you talking about the animation codec?   The animation codec can cause problems particularly at higher resolution.  If you need a file with an alpha channel, you can use prores 4444  which will play much nicer with your hardware...  

And I've found .wav files generally put greater demand on your system than aiffs.  

You might try removing these things from a duplicate of your project and see if things improve.    Never simple to diagnose these sort of problems from a distance so forgive me if I'm stating the obvious to you.  Also difficult to judge the level of expertise/experience from peoples posts here...  

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for the response. I have already attempted using ProRes proxying, I figured if this was a workload issue that would at least minimize the freezing for a small amount of time before one of the projects got more complex, however it had no impact on the issue.

Additionally, it being related to the stress the files cause makes no sense to me, since two of my team members share the exact same specs on their PCs and updating to 25.1 seems to have significantly smoothed the process of one of their workflows and absolutely bricked the other one.

To answer your question: Yes we use .mov animation files often in our videos, often exported from After Effects in-house. I am not certain that they are relevant though, as I'm having this problem in fresh projects where I only import the raw footage and audio as well. Nonetheless, at your suggestion I'll dig a little deeper into their codecs and see what I can find to ensure I'm utilizing those files most efficiently.

Moving further, I'm going to re-export the host audio as an AIFF, though given that those are larger files than .WAVs I'm concerned this may make the issue worse. My other option if I follow that path of thought is to export as .MP3 or equivalent compressed file types, which would be unacceptable unfortunately. But again, it won't hurt for me to take a look and try with AIFF files. I have been wrong many times before, haha!

As a frame of reference to my level of familliarity in the field, I've been professionally editing video for 6 years, with 2 of those years being freelance, plus I've got another 2 years of Audio/Video Production education prior, all of those years using Adobe. That all said you're very right, trying to diagnose these kinds of issues is difficult as it is let alone with limited information filtered on a forum.

I appreciate you reaching out regardless, hoping something will 

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

end up causing it to correct itself.

(Apologies, misclicked the post before finishing up after going up to edit a section of my response.)

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

Update: I'm now noticing after reviewing task manager again that every time I touch the audio in any of my projects it causes the power usage of Premiere to spike to very high. It didn't do this when I was initally trying to diagnose the issue yesterday. Might be a clue towards solving what's going on here but I'm not sure where it's pointing me to.

[Michael Grenadier]

a wav file with the same settings as an aiff should be virtually the same size so thinking there may be something in the settings of your wav files.  Generally the wav's I work with are uncompressed.  and don't even see any option to apply a compressor to it in apple compressor...     

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

Another update a day later, changing to AIFF files changed nothing. I have checked all of the settings for my WAV encoding and there's nothing out of the ordinary in any of the properties or metadata. And so the problem persists.

I'm perplexed to not be able to find anything about this issue anywhere online at all given that it's affecting 50% of the editing computers at my office..

[Michael Grenadier]

Are you connected to a network? Try disconnecting from the network and see
if that makes a difference.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Hunter26192357rlvc - Thank you for the detailed information, especially with the troubleshooting steps you have taken.  We need a few more details to try and help.

@Michael Grenadier has a great question is your media on a network drive?

Can you check your audio hardware settings and make sure Default Input is set to "No Input"

What GPU driver are you using?

Would you be able to post a screen recording of the issue you are experiencing?

Do you have the essential sound panel open?

In the Timeline Panel can you select the hamburger menu and choose undock panel.  Let us know if that helps.

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for taking some time to help take a look at the issue. To move through your questions:

I am not connected to a network drive.

My audio settings when using MME drivers has the setting for Default Input set to No Input always, but I have switched to ASIO drivers to eliminate that possibility entirely.

The day of the original post I upgraded my graphics driver to GeFroce Game Ready Driver 566.36 (Released December 5th 2024), but this issue was going on prior to the update, and persisted after.

I can post a screen recording later today to showcase the issue.

The essential sound panel is always closed, I rarely, if ever, use any of the tools on essential sound.

Additionally, undocking the timeline panel didn't help either unfortunately.

[Michael Grenadier]

so you have an audio interface connected (guessing from your mention of MME drivers)?  Can you test without it connected?

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

Yes I do have an audio interface connected. Unplugging it from my device and setting the driver back to MME (No Input), routing the audio directly through headphones plugged into the PC and the problem is significantly worse.

[Michael Grenadier]

can you try it without the mme drivers being accessed.  I'm on a mac without any external audio interface so not sure exactly how this would work on the windows...   

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Hunter26192357rlvc - Adobe recommends installing the latest Studio driver for the supported NVIDIA GPU, Can you please install the latest studio driver and let us know.

Do you have Blackmagic software installed?

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

To answer Michael, MME drivers must be in use to hear sound from the PC on Windows unless ASIO drivers are installed, which I have done and used to no avail.

To answer Jamie, switching to the most recent studio driver didn't yield any results.

[Hunter26192357rlvc]

Oh, additionally I do not have any BlackMagic software installed.

[jamieclarke]

What software do you have installed that uses the ASIO drivers?  Can you navigate to the help menu and select "system compatibility report" then in the lower left hand corner there will be an export button.  Save these two files and email them to jamiec@adobe.com